Frozen Land
by Layla99
Summary: One by one they left and soon only Sakura remained. Cold and alone. But just when her heart is healed, //His voice was enough to melt my frozen land, and make me really feel// it was broken. So when Team 7 returns... //SakuraxUnknown// Based on true story
1. Chapter 1

**I don't own Naruto, and I never will for every single chapter of this fanfiction.**

**A/N: Hello. Um...I'm back. Well, I'm feeling a lot better, and this is an extra story that I wrote as an apology for not being able to update in so long. I'm not sure if people will like this story, but all I can say is that it's based on a true story, and it is very important to me. I want to mention that it will be a SakuraxOOC pairing at first, but it will change as the story goes on. The OOC character is very important to the plot, so I'm very sorry to those people who really don't like OOC in fanfiction. I'm almost done with the next chapter of Changed, and I have the outline for the next chapter of Cocoon. For those of you that are interested, I've put what happened to me in both Changed and Cocoon. In other words, a summary of my accident. Thank you for reading this, and I hope you enjoy. **

_Italics: _ Thought or emphasis on certain words.

**Chapter 1**

'_And I laughed out in glee as I realized that there was no pain here in this coldness.'_

'_His voice was enough to melt my frozen land, and make me really __feel__.'_

When Sai and Yamato left team 7 to join ANBU once again, I'd been devastated. Once someone enters ANBU, the chances of seeing them are reduced by 99 percent. ANBU works undercover, lives undercover; they are undercover and nothing can change that. Naruto, and I tried our best to meet them from time to time, but it was awkward because we could only meet in secure private areas, and even then, we couldn't say their names or see their faces. Slowly, we drifted apart, and soon enough, a message from Sai arrived by hawk to me. It read that both he and Yamato were leaving on a mission that would last for many years; they promised to leave ANBU afterwards. That's how those two left my life, and I knew that when I see them again, all of us would have changed too much. I was 16, and fresh as a Jounin when that piece of my heart left.

Next to leave was Kakashi-sensei. It wasn't dramatic, nor sad, he just left. The route Kakashi-sensei chose was impossible for many to comprehend, all but for Tsunade-shishou, Naruto and I that is. Kakashi-sensei chose to retire. His heart and his mind were exhausted far beyond his years, so like how Tsunade-shishou had done once before, Kakashi-sensei left Konoha. It was only a year after Sai and Yamato. Just when my aching heart was slowly starting to heal…

So team 7 was down to two people, Naruto and me. Then Naruto left, again when I was 18. I wouldn't see him again for many years. Oblivious to my pain, that idiot left Konoha to search for Sasuke. He had smiled at me innocently, saying, "Don't worry Sakura-chan! I'll bring back Sasuke-teme back for sure this time." I wanted to tell him, 'NO! I don't care about him anymore. Stay, please stay.' but that was impossible. Just seeing the pure determination, the fiery will in his eyes left me mute. As I watched his figure slowly fading away into the distance, my heart broke. Sasuke was part of Akatsuki, for Naruto to go look for him was for him to go looking for death. I wanted to follow, I wanted to go along, but I couldn't. Konoha needed me. The only reason Naruto was allowed to go was because he wasn't allowed. He was leaving in secret, and I had helped his escape. If anything happened to him, it would be my fault.

The pain of loneliness was great. Yes, I still had the rest of Konoha Nine and my other friends, but to lose my teammates again was like losing my whole family. People didn't realize that I was slowly bleeding inside though. They saw my forced smiles, fake laughs, and empty temper, and thought that I was still alive. I was dead. My heart was aching, but I still cared enough to put up a front.

On June 18th, when I was 19 years old, a terrible accident occurred. A group of civilians had gone on an escorted trip to a famous hot spring in a regular civilian town, South of Konoha. My parents had been in that group. I had given them the tickets to the hot spring for their anniversary present.The group was ambushed. The escorts consisted of only two chuunin. No one survived. It was my fault that my parents died. I killed them.

The pain was horrible. It felt as if my heart was tearing apart. I spent a week in the hospital, unconscious due to grief. In that time, I dreamed. I was standing in a frozen land where it was too cold for even snow to survive. Stretching as far as the eye can see is ice. The numbing ice froze my heart, froze me. And I laughed out in glee as I realized that there was no pain here in this coldness. No grief. When I awoke, that numbness remained. To remain frozen, unfeeling, I just had to remember that wonderful, terrible, dream.

Haruno Sakura. My looks had changed naturally over the years. My hair had paled to the palest of pink, and my green eyes had dulled down to flat. I'd grown taller, though I was still tiny, petite, people called me. My cloths changed with my looks as well, changing from red to grays and blacks. True shinobi colors. After waking up from my coma, I realized with irony that my new looks matched my new persona flawlessly. It was as if my body had already known what was to come, and matched itself to the future me. How irritating.

People called me cold, icy, emotionless. I say that they were perfectly correct. Haruno Sakura didn't fit me anymore. I quite my job at the hospital to join the hunter-nins; this numb, impassive, cold job seemed to fit what I had become. I was good at what I did. Perfect even, but like I said, once you join ANBU, you have to practically detach yourself from everyone, and hunter-nins were a part of ANBU. My friends slowly drifted away from me, just like Yamato and Sai, but I didn't care shit. All I needed was my frozen sanctuary, and I wouldn't have to remember the pain.

Ah, that's when I met him…

O

O

O

"Yuki, the target is to your left?" Yuki is my codename as a hunter-nin, and my mask is as blank as my face, white, expressionless. Once upon a time, when I still had emotions, I would have snarled at the questioner, asking them if they thought I was too much of an idiot to notice something so noticeable, but the most I felt was slight irritation, before indifference.

"Hai."

My Cap, or Captain, obviously our commander, gave us the signal to begin. Cap shrank into the shadows as backup, as the rest of us surrounded the shinobi in a triangle formation. The young man started, before crouching into a defense pose, his wary violet eyes flickering between the three of us. Being the negotiator, I spoke first. "Shinobi-san, please calm yourself, we're not after your life, but information." This was the only time that I was required to lose my icy tone to speak with a warm, gentle one. Fake of course, but it worked, usually.

He was strikingly handsome, tall with a lean, muscled figure, hair, silky blonde, like Naruto's, but not as loud or bright. He seemed to be my age, 20. My voice caused him to relax slightly, and the hostile gleam in his strange violet eyes was replaced with curiosity.

"I see. What is it that you wish to know Kunoichi-san?"

When I heard his voice, it was only thanks to my training that I didn't gasp out loud. Judging by the muffled gasps that I heard in my earpiece, I wasn't the only one reeling in surprise. His voice was exquisite, one of a kind, smooth, silky, rich as chocolate. Simply put beautiful. His voice was enough to melt my frozen land, and make me really _feel_. I saw him raise an eyebrow in question, a gentle smile on his face. My heart throbbed painfully before I forcefully called back the frozen land, calming me, numbing me.

"You are a foreign shinobi in foreign lands, Shinobi-san. Yet—"

"My name is Ronin." He interrupted. The frozen land was pushed back once again to leave me blinking in confusion, then impatience. _Ronin? That means Samurai without a master…hn…fitting if his headband says anything, except that he's a shinobi and not a samurai of course. _

"Okay. You are a foreign shinobi in foreign lands, _Ronin-san. _Yet you continue to travel without a permit, or even a disguise. Who are you? Where are you from? What is your purpose here? And why is your headband blank?" The members of my team seemed surprised. It was the first time they had heard true emotion from me in the year that I had joined their team as a hunter-nin.

My annoyance rose to anger at his smile/smirk. He relaxed further, and gently replied, in what I supposed would have been a soothing voice if I hadn't been so exasperated at him, "Well, I'm as you already know, Ronin, and I'm afraid I never really had a last name. I'm from nowhere in particular; the last place I was before coming here was Wind Country, and I think I was born in the country that's called Sound now. I don't have a purpose but to travel, and hopefully join a village. My headbands blank because I learned the ninja arts through, a now dead, missing nin, and I don't have a village that I am or was from." He finished in a rush, and then asked, "Can I join your village?"

I was flabbergasted for a few reasons. He answered completely truthfully, that I was sure of, he was asking if he could join Konoha, and well, his voice…whoa. Once again, I was left dumbstruck, and no amount of coaxing could bring back my frozen land at the moment. My teammates were in a similar dilemma, and I though with slight awe and fear that if he wanted to, he could attack us right now. But, he didn't.

"Oh…drat. It's my voice isn't it?" He raised his hand to muffle the sound of his voice. "So sorry, I was so nervous that I forgot." Another heart throbbing smile.

"Uh…" Well, it was definitely easier to think now that his voice wasn't sending shivers of delight down my spine. The others seemed to be of the same mind. Cap leapt down from his hiding place, startling Ronin slightly.

Speaking in his usual baritone voice, Cap said, "If what you say is the truth, then cooperate with us, and we will take you to our Hokage." Cap's white mask with the green swirls gave him an intimidating look, but all that I could think of was that he was crazy. Even though Ronin spoke the truth, it may be only part of the truth, or his strange voice may be influencing our hearing into believing that even an obvious lie is the truth.

I tried to whisper that into our communicator, but he ignored me. I could only watch with rising fury as Cap stripped off all of Ronin's weapons, put in a gag, and tied his hands behind his back. Then he sealed off Ronin's chakra with a compressor. Gritting my teeth, I used every ounce of my will to bring the numbing cold again.

"So…what's your name?" Asked Ronin through his gag. It sounded more like. Shu…wha yor na? Of course, now that his alluring voice wasn't affecting me, I could coolly ignore him.

"You can call her Yuki." I tightened my fist in icy fury as Cap answered for me. Poisoned senbon left my hand and flew towards Cap, imbedding themselves into the bark of a tree by his head. The tree withered and died with a hiss as the poison/acid took effect.

Cap stiffened, before rubbing his temple hoping to disperse his headache. Ronin on the other hand froze in alarm, his violet eyes staring at the remains of the tree in disbelief. I wasn't surprised at his reaction; he had probably never seen such poison before in his life. As a hunter-nin, it's mandatory for you to have special talents or skills, or it's impossible for you to ever graduate from the ANBU training camp.

When I learned medical ninjutsu from Tsunade-shishou, I had never imagined how potent or amazingly useful it would be in the field as a hunter-nin. At the camp, our instructor, who went by the name 'Blank', made sure to use my medical talents to the fullest in ways that Tsunade-shishou had never done. Because she had never joined ANBU, she had never been on the receiving end of the countless years of resource that the trainers had. I admit that I had read my analysis by Blank, which wasn't supposed to be read by anyone other then the instructor, and the Hokage. It read:

Haruno Sakura's skills with medical ninjutsu are far above average in terms of age, experience and family. With her raw skills, I was able to hone it to an advantage position where she could reach the point of expelling chakra blades from her whole body, and shoot it at her opponents. With her perfect control, she is able to do this with only a small amount of chakra, which gives her the ability to use this skill 67 times before damage to her body occurs. Her analytical intelligence, and her calm control of emotions, further enforces her talent as a hunter-nin. With her high IQ, and knack for poisons and antidotes, I have seen her create improbable acids and potions in which contains immense power. Her tijutsu, I have found out is best with the **Dancing Shadow technique**. By allowing her to use her speed, size, flexibility and quick reactions, she is able to execute the tijutsu form to perfection. Katana is unfortunately a definite no on her part due to her size, but senbon and kunai dipped in her own poisons make up for it tenfold. As for her super strength, there is no need to say anything other then that it is as frightening as Tsunade-sama's. Her ninjutsu affinity is wind, and her genjutsu has infinite potential, already being amazing as it is. In terms of weakness, Sakura has low stamina, which is not unusual for kunoichi, and her chakra reserves are on the low side. As for summoning, she is quite good at it, but it unfortunately drains too much chakra for her to use it often.

I had been pleased by what I read, and at the same time annoyed. It told me nothing that I didn't already know, and this left me with a sense of disappointment.

The rest of the journey to Konoha was spent in heavy silence. When the gates of Konoha appeared, we took to the roofs with practical ease. I noticed that today, the gate guard was Ino. Ino. Once that name would have aroused at least some form of emotion, but now, all I could feel was emptiness. Ino glanced at us, before quickly averting her gaze nervously when she saw me staring back at her through my mask. She was obviously nervous and tense around ANBU, hunter-nin especially, not that I could blame her. She didn't know that the blank white mask belonged to me. My pink hair was hidden with faint genjutsu, changing the color to black, and my green eyes were common enough not produce any nagging suspicion.

Like always, we entered through the window of the Hokage tower, like all ANBU do, and I was met with a few familiar faces. Kiba, Shino and Hinata. They started at our abrupt entrance, but continued to keep their guard up. "You may go" Ordered Tsunade, and they hurriedly left, Kiba suggesting that they visit Kurenai.

As the door shut firmly behind Shino's exit, Tsunade turned her attention to us. She narrowed her eyes in the usual way when she saw something that she didn't like, or didn't understand. "What's this?" She barked out. In the stiffening of her posture and the hard gaze in her eyes, I could tell at once that she wanted answers.

We gave her the mission report as the answer, and as she read, the furrow between her eyebrows became more and more prominent. The mission was complete, I wanted out, but the way that Tsunade-shishou was settling herself into her chair spoke that we still had a cumbersome conversation ahead.

"So, Ronin. You want to join Konoha?" Tsunade-shishou motioned for Cap to take out Ronin's gag. As soon as the gag was out, I stiffened involuntarily, wary, with good reason of the voice. I watched as he took a gulp of air, and parted his slightly thin lips to answer.

"Yes."

Damn, once again his voice thawed me out. I saw Tsunade-shishou's eyes widen, and then I saw her fiercely trying to take control once again. Ronin realized this, and amended with his hand up over his mouth to slightly muffle his voice.

"Yes, I wish to join Konoha, that is, if you will let me… Please?" Tsunade blinked as the short spell of his voice was broken, and she glanced my way, then back to Ronin again. There was a slight glint in her eyes, which usually meant trouble. _Damn._

"What can you do with that voice of yours?" She asked.

All I could think of was, _my god, she's going to let him in._

Ronin answered willingly enough, "It…um, for lack of better words, dazzles people. They can't think straight, and it makes them all gooey, figuratively I mean, not really gooey, that would be gross. Well…when I sing, uh…people pass out." He finished with a sheepish grin.

"…"

"Okay. After your interrogation with Ibiki…(Tsuande-shishou grinned evilly)…and you turn out positive, I'll put you under probation for a year, _then_ you can join Konoha." Ronin already was nodding his head enthusiastically at the plan, his whole face lit up with joy. "Oh, and one more thing. You have to where a mask cloth mask to muffle your voice." Ronin visibly deflated at that, but nether the less nodded, though a tad less enthusiastically.

Tsunade-shishou then turned her attention to Cap, and my other two teammates. "You may leave, but Sa- I mean Yuki, stay." I almost flinched at her near slip up. After they left, Tsunade turned to me. I saw the fanatical gleam in her eyes, and I hoped, prayed that Cap had the enough sense not to have put in the mission report that I had showed emotion with Ronin.

"Take off your mask, Sakura."

My eyes widened behind my mask, all I could think was that Tsunade-shishou had definitely gone crazy, Ronin was still in the room with us and she had called me by my real name and told me to take off my mask.

"Sakura." Tsuande-shishou growled.

Grudgingly, I pulled off my mask with a scowl, and with it came off my genjutsu on my hair. Tsunade-shishou noticed the brief look of irritation on my face, before I was able to smooth it down to impassive again, and she grinned. I swore and cursed in my head. Cap, that jackass _had_ written in the mission report of my emotions.

I heard a muffled gasp, and both Tsunade-shishou and I turned our gaze at Ronin who was gaping at me with a glazed expression on his face. Tsunade-shishou looked smug as she crowed "I told you that you were too beautiful for your own good Sakura!" Like I didn't know that already, that was one of the reasons that I joined ANBU.

"So…from now on, Sakura, you are on leave from ANBU and hunter-nin duties until I say so, and instead, you will be the caretaker of our dear Ronin until he's off probation!"

"…"

_GOD DAMN IT!_

O

O

O

**Dancing Shadow Technique: This form of Tijutsu uses the users small compact figure, speed, flexibility, quick reactions and intelligence to the fullest. The user moves in a graceful dance like way to doge the attacks of the opponent. This, coupled with their speed makes them seem to appear in front of you suddenly, like a Shadow. Using knowledge of pressure points and painful spots on the body, the user quickly deals as much damage with as little amount of movement possible, before quickly retreating. **

A/N: I created this technique. Do you think it's realistic?


	2. Bad News

Hello! This is Layla's friend Emily again. And once again, I have very bad news. At the moment, I'm the one taking care of all of Layla's online work, like Email and Fanfiction because she's in the hosptial and going through rough times. Layla has cancer, which was discovered after her accident, for this reason, Layla can not leave strain herself, and is usually in the hospital. She's asked me to tell all her readers that she is very sorry, but updating will be impossible for awhile. So all her stories are on hiatus until further notice. I'm sorry that I had to be the bringer of bad news once again. At the moment, I'm going through fanfiction and finding stories that she may be intrested in reading later on when she feels better, I would love for some inspiration from everyone because I'm pretty much a newbie on this site. Thank you.

-Emily


End file.
